Mary Tyler Moore’s Guide to Leaning In

Maybe I’m biased. Like Mary Richards, producer on “The Six O’Clock News” at WJM in Minneapolis, I’m a single female journalist in her 30s who works out of a big Midwestern city.

But as played by Mary Tyler Moore, who died on Wednesday, Mary was more than a faded symbol of second-wave feminism. Don’t let those adorable neck kerchiefs and pleated miniskirts fool you. Forty years after “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” went off the air, Mary Richards’s struggles should still ring true for young women like myself. And her commitment to job, her colleagues and, most of all, to herself, still make her a model we can look up to.

Some episodic lessons:

You can be nice, and strong. She “turns the world on with her smile.” She’s insistently pleasant and earnest. It’s not a facade to make people like her; it’s her authentic self. She calls her boss Mr. Grant, even as everyone else calls him Lou. She’s good humored and honest, terrific qualities in a news producer, even if it took awhile for some people to realize that. “You’ve got spunk,” Lou infamously tells Mary when they first meet. “I hate spunk.”

Stand up for others, and yourself. When Mary has a chance to hire a sportscaster, she picks a woman, an Olympic swimmer. Lou hates the idea. The news writer Murray assumes she’s just a “dummy in a tank suit.” Mary calls them out. “The idea of hiring Barbara Jean Smathers to do sports is not dumb,” she tells Lou. “What’s dumb is rejecting the idea because of some stupid prejudice. That is dumb.” (The live studio audience goes, “oooohhh,” and applauds.) In the end, Mary wields her authority: “Well, I’m producer of the news, and I think it’s a good idea. So that’s that.” And if the tennis club won’t let in your Jewish friend, tell them you’re Jewish, too, if you’re not.

Ask for what you deserve. Mary makes a disturbing discovery in Season 3: She’s paid less than her male predecessor. She considers every rational explanation, but the reason is all too familiar even to present-day viewers. “Because he was a man,” Lou explains, with characteristic bluntness. Mary’s pushback doesn’t go over well, but she does eventually get pay equity. In later seasons she’s promoted from associate producer to producer (and fights back when she’s assigned a co-producer). She asks for more challenging responsibilities, and she gets them. (“I think it’s probably good for me to ask for what I believe in.”) By Season 7, Lou and Mary are going to the station director together to jointly ask for raises, and threaten to walk if they don’t get them. “Leaning in” isn’t easy, but you might find some surprising allies along the way.

Fight the war, not every battle. You don’t have to react to every preposterous thing the doltishly egotistical anchorman Ted Baxter says, every offensive joke Lou makes, every dig from the cheerfully brutal Sue Ann Nivens, host of WJM’s other big show, “The Happy Homemaker.” An eye roll will often suffice. Or maybe a good-humored joke with a workmate like Murray, who helps you keep things in perspective. Keep your eye on the prize. After all, when Prince Charles suddenly cancels your “Talk of the Town” segment, you’ve got work to do!

Honor your foremothers. Mary’s Aunt Flo is a famous groundbreaking journalist of a generation earlier. Much of her battle is familiar to Mary, but Flo has a hard edge that is decidedly un-Mary-like. Lou explains it well: “You see, Mary, when your aunt started out, she was a pioneer. All working women were. Pioneers have to be tough. They don’t win popularity contests. People like Flo Meredith broke the ground for people like Mary Richards.” Mary: “Sometimes you really surprise me. You’re not what I’d call a liberated man, but sometimes, Mr. Grant … wow.”

Take criticism and praise with a grain of salt. It’s great that Mary wins a prestigious Teddy award, but that doesn’t make her immune from colds, stained clothing and false eyelashes stuck to her cheek. And when that female sportscaster that Mary fought for can’t stop herself from only reporting on swimming, Mary absorbs both criticism and comfort from her colleagues, takes responsibility, squares her shoulders and moves on. With a smile, of course.

Stay true to your values. In the first episode of Season 5, Mary goes to jail when she refuses to reveal her source on a story. It’s hardly a battle that can be won easily. Two years later, the case is still chasing at her heels, and she has to lawyer up to face her contempt charge. (The prosecutor argues that she’s “not a bona fide newsman and therefore not entitled to First Amendment protections.”) She puts herself on the line to tell the truth. In the end, she’s vindicated in part because of the credibility she’s earned in the city after years of doing her job with integrity. Mary never gave up. She knew our democracy (and our self-respect) depend upon it.

Anna Clark, a journalist in Detroit, is a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan.